


Aster Philein

by premeditated



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Space Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/premeditated/pseuds/premeditated
Summary: Momota entered the Exisal hangar as Ouma’s prisoner and left it willing to become a murderer for him. Somehow, nobody really seemed to wonder why.Or: the birth of Momota and Ouma’s fire-forged partnership in Chapter 5, and the missed opportunities that were orbiting it the whole time.
Relationships: Momota Kaito/Oma Kokichi, Momota Kaito/Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Momota Kaito/Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 130





	Aster Philein

**Author's Note:**

> ha ha. ha. i haven’t even finished the game, i'm too sad :’(
> 
> this is actually my magnum opus. i could've written a 10k+ word thesis about why we should all love ouma and momota (and oumota) with all of our hearts, but instead i wrote a 10k+ word fanfic to prove it instead. i truly believe it's inconsistent to like one of them but not the other, and i truly believe that saihara let ouma down in the end :( i had to cry about it, and now you do, too!
> 
> anyway, i had two goals when writing this fic: keep it canon compliant and keep it neutral as to whether everyone’s dead/what they’re like after the game. i put a lot of work into writing this around the stuff that we do know about this “missing” time… but if there are still any inconsistencies, well, i guess that just means momota was lying when he told everyone about it after the trial ;p
> 
> final notes: this is primarily an oumota fic, of course, but they're both tragically in love with saihara, so. "aster philein" is classical greek for "star lover." it's also the basis for the title of the first sonnet cycle to popularize the form in the english language, sir philip sidney's "astrophil and stella" (greek "star lover" and latin "star"), because these two are in love and couldn't be together and it's tragic!!! ugh

“Hey, Momota- _chan_ , let’s team up!”

Momota blinked up at Ouma from his position doubled over on the floor of the Exisal hangar’s bathroom. Ouma had his arm outstretched, hand offered for Momota to take as he smiled sweetly, and for a moment, Momota was so surprised that he forgot to be in pain.

Then the world caught back up with him, and he glared up at Ouma with narrowed eyes.

“Like Hell!” he spat—literally spat, since there was still blood dripping from his mouth from his last coughing fit. “I’d never team up with you, asshole!”

“How cruel of you, Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma said, laying his free hand over his heart as if he felt even half the pain that was currently constricting Momota’s chest. “ _Never_? Do you reaaaally mean that?”

“After everything you put us through,” Momota said through gritted teeth, “how can you even ask that? Huh?”

“Oh, but the killing game’s over,” Ouma pointed out. “We don’t have to—”

“Don’t mess with me!” Momota roared, aching with fury. “As if that matters now! I said _never_!”

“Really? Even if it’s to stop the mastermind?”

Momota froze. He could feel his pulse boiling under his skin as he watched Ouma’s face slowly split into a wide grin. “ _You’re_ the mastermind.”

“Ah,” Ouma said, his hair falling into his eyes, “that? That was a lie.”

The entire world listed, like the planet itself had fallen out of orbit. If Momota could stand, he would’ve fallen straight to the ground. As it was, he could only watch dizzily as Ouma kept talking, still holding out his stupid hand as if it mattered whether or not Momota was sprawled on the floor for this conversation.

“Really, it’s so horrible that you would believe me without any proof at all, isn’t it?” Ouma actually looked _dejected_ , sniffling pitifully while tears sprang to his eyes as if on cue. “Well, maybe I expected it from you, anyway, since you’re such a hopeless idiot. But someone like Saihara- _chan_ has no excuse! He should be better at being lied to by now… If only he would’ve listened to me, we—”

“Hey,” Momota cut in, voice low and dangerous. Ouma’s mouth clicked shut, although he insisted on continuing to wipe away those annoying fake tears. “How do you expect me to believe that, huh?”

“Because it’s the truth,” Ouma said earnestly, like that meant _anything_ at all.

“Tch,” Momota scoffed. “If you wanted us to prove it, why bother confessing in the first place? Of course we’re gonna believe you.”

“Oops, you got me!” Ouma said with a laugh. “I wanted you to believe me. It’s all part of my plan to stop the killing game, you see.”

Momota eyed him warily. “I thought the killing game was over.”

“That was a lie, too,” Ouma said, and Momota’s heart stopped. “Obviously, it can’t be over if I’m not really the mastermind, you know?”

“What do you mean… it’s not over?” he got out through the white-hot flare of panic in his stomach.

“C’mon, keep up, Momota- _chan_!” Ouma chastised, frowning. “That’s why I need your help. I have a plan to stop the _real_ mastermind, but I need a partner to make it work. That’s you!”

Momota balled his shaking hands into fists and started to drag himself up, forsaking Ouma’s outstretched hand. He had to lean on the sink, and the world was still tilting like it would never steady itself again, but he managed it. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he fixed Ouma with the fiercest glare he could muster.

“What makes you think… I’d _ever_ team up with you?” he panted. “Even if you were lying before… you think that makes a difference now?”

Ouma finally lowered his hand. He tilted his head to the side, scrutinizing Momota with an unnerving gaze. “Of course not.”

“Then what’s your real plan?” Momota pressed. “I know you have one. You might as well tell me, if you want me to be part of it!”

Ouma was smiling again, and it made Momota’s knuckles go white where they clutched the sink.

“I know you’re dying.”

If Momota thought he was dizzy before, now it felt like the ground had disappeared beneath his feet. He was free-floating, listening to Ouma’s words like they were drifting to him through a soundless vacuum, across a vast distance.

“You’re wrong!” Momota insisted, pushing himself off from the sink to stand on his own two feet. “This is just because you—”

“C’mon, Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma interrupted patiently, “don’t try to tell me it’s all from the Exisal dragging you here. You and I both know that would be a lie.”

“What would you know?” Momota shot back, skin crawling as Ouma continued to stare at him closely. “You’ve been our enemy since day one!”

“You’ve fooled the others well enough,” Ouma continued as if he hadn’t even spoken, “but that won’t work on me, you know? I’m too good at lying not to notice when someone’s doing the same thing.”

“The same thing?” Momota echoed, balking. “As if! We’re different!”

Ouma smirked at him like he knew exactly what he was thinking. “You don’t really think that,” he said. “Do you?”

“We’re not the same,” Momota insisted, face flushing red with anger at the very thought.

“I think we are,” Ouma sighed, finally looking away and releasing Momota from his probing gaze. “At least, in all the ways that matter. But that’s not really the part that’s relevant to my plan.”

“Huh?!” Momota exclaimed. “Then what have we been talking about this whole time?”

“It only matters that you’re going to die anyway,” Ouma said, apparently examining his nails. “Judging by how you look right now, you’ve got, what… two days left to live? Three, maybe, if you’re especially lucky?”

Momota’s fists clenched at his sides. “Hey…!”

Ouma glanced up to meet his glare, lightning fast. “So, you won’t mind if I kill you, right?”

* * *

Saihara spent time in his detective lab not because it was a pleasant place to be (although it might have made a wonderful reading nook under different circumstances) but because it was a source of deadly weapons that he wanted to keep track of. As such, he tended to associate visitors with dangerous threats rather than social calls as a general rule.

So, when he opened the door to find Ouma standing over a table covered in unidentified, ominous liquids, he thought he could be forgiven for being immediately suspicious.

“Ouma- _kun_?” he called, stepping into the room somewhat hesitantly. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“Ah, Saihara- _chan_!” Ouma greeted as he twirled around, smiling at Saihara with a twinkle in his eyes. “I was almost starting to think I’d never see you in your own lab.”

“I don’t spend much time here,” Saihara admitted a tad sheepishly.

He glanced from Ouma to the various mismatched bottles of liquid on the table and felt himself frowning. _Could it be that he was waiting for me for some reason…?_

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter whether it was you or someone random,” Ouma said, as if he could read Saihara’s thoughts. “I just needed access to some of the goodies in here!”

“You were… using the poisons?” Saihara asked, unsure whether he was more surprised by the fact that he was or the fact that he’d admitted to it so easily.

“Well, that’s kind of mean, isn’t it?” Ouma huffed, pouting. “I could’ve been here to look at the case files.”

Saihara shot a pointed glance at the table covered in chemistry experiments. “Were you?”

“Well, no,” Ouma admitted. “But I could’ve been! Doesn’t that tiny bit of doubt bother you at least a little, Saihara- _chan_?!”

Saihara sighed. “What were you using the poisons for, Ouma- _kun_?”

“I’m glad you asked!” Ouma said with a giggle. “I was planning to poison you, Saihara- _chan_!”

“Wh-What?” Saihara stuttered, startled.

“Kidding!” Ouma sang. “I would never do something like that.”

“Then why were you mixing all these poisons with…” Saihara glanced at the empty bottles and cans covering the table. “…Panta and food coloring?”

“It’s a riddle!” Ouma informed him cheerfully. “The point of the game is to figure out where the regular, non-poisoned Panta is. Now that you’re here, you might as well play!”

Then Ouma was pushing a piece of paper into his hands and making an expectant “Go on” sort of gesture as he waited for Saihara to read it. Saihara gave him a dubious look before turning his attention to the paper.

“Death can always be found two to the right of purple…” he read aloud.

A quick scan revealed that the rest of the paper was full of similar rules, handwritten by Ouma, and when he looked more closely at the table, he realized that all the bottles that weren’t empty had been lined up in one long, precise row. They each contained some kind of murky purplish liquid, some more truly resembling the color of Panta than others but all of them otherwise indistinguishable.

He glanced back up at Ouma. “Aren’t they all purple, if it’s Panta?”

“Aw, how could you say that?” Ouma complained, shooting Saihara a devastated look. “It wasn’t easy trying to get the colors to change with just this food coloring, you know. You could at least be a little appreciative!”

_Actually, I would have preferred it if you hadn’t done any of this at all…_ Saihara thought defeatedly. Out loud, he said, “Do you really want me to do this?”

“Of course!” Ouma declared. “All my hard work would go to waste otherwise. Besides… it should be no match for someone with your skills, Saihara- _chan_.”

Saihara ignored that slightly ominous statement and set to work on the puzzle. Ouma was right that he was qualified to figure it out, but there were twenty-three total bottles and the work was still time-consuming. In the end, it still took him close to thirty minutes and a page of scribbled notes to find the solution.

“It’s this one,” he said finally, picking up a bottle towards the middle of the line that was, as far as he could tell, just the normal shade of purple.

“Ah, as expected of the Super High School Level Detective!” Ouma sighed in awe. He leaned forward into Saihara’s personal space, fixing him with an intense gaze. “So cool! I can’t wait to see what happens when you drink it!”

Saihara was so surprised that he nearly fumbled the bottle right out of his hands. “Wh-When I what?”

“Drink it, obviously!” Ouma’s eyes were glittering with excitement. “That’s the only way to know if you got it right.”

“You could just tell me,” Saihara pointed out.

“Ah, but you see,” Ouma started, sounding only vaguely apologetic, “I kind of already forgot which one it was. Oopsies!”

“Isn’t that a little too hard to believe…?” Saihara wondered.

Ouma frowned. “Well, it would’ve been easier to remember if you hadn’t taken so long to show up!”

_He’s acting like we had plans to meet here or something…_

With a shake of his head, Saihara put the bottle back down on the table. “I’m not going to drink it.”

“Why not?” Ouma demanded, his frown turning into more of a pout.

“Ah,” Saihara said hesitantly, “that’s…”

Outright saying that it was because he suspected him of poisoning it anyway seemed a bit too cruel, even if it was Ouma. Saihara bit his lip, searching for the right way to phrase the truth.

“Oh!” Ouma suddenly gasped, eyes widening. Then he leaned in even closer than before, like he was about to share an important secret, and said quietly, “Could it be… because of your insecurities?”

Saihara gaped at him. “My… my what?”

“It’s okay, Saihara- _chan_ ,” Ouma rushed to reassure him. “You found the poison bottle through nothing but sheer detective work. If you have trouble trusting your abilities, well… I can see why you would be afraid to put them to the test, so to speak.”

Ouma’s explanation actually had the effect of rendering him even more speechless than before. It didn’t help that Ouma was leaned in so close, staring at him with the most compassionate expression that Saihara had ever seen him wear.

“Um,” Saihara offered, feeling his cheeks start to flush red with embarrassment.

“Don’t worry,” Ouma said earnestly, “ _I_ believe in you, Saihara- _chan_. I know it’s not the same, but sometimes, having a friend’s trust is even more important than trusting yourself.”

An odd feeling of shame was washing over Saihara. It was hard to really take anything Ouma said at face value, but that didn’t change the fact that he was saying something so kind and… accurate at the very moment that Saihara had been assuming the worst about him. It was almost impossible not to feel guilty, even if he knew at the back of his mind that Ouma may have wanted exactly that.

He awkwardly cleared his throat, averting his gaze. “Ouma- _kun_ …”

“What? Was my pep talk not good enough?” Ouma asked. Then he suddenly straightened up, pulling away from Saihara’s space entirely. “Or maybe… you’re just worried I poisoned all of them, instead?”

Saihara let out the breath he had been holding, all of those complicated feelings getting expelled with it. “It… had crossed my mind, yes.”

“That’s not very nice of you!” Ouma complained. “It’s not like I’ve ever cheated in front of you before.”

“But you did just say you forgot which bottle it was,” Saihara pointed out.

“Yeah, but that was just because I wanted you to drink it!” Ouma sighed. “Oh, well. I guess there really is no outsmarting you, Mr. Super High School Level Detective. Thanks for playing!”

And Saihara might have just left it at that, if he hadn’t already been thrown so off-center by this whirlwind of an interaction. But something about that last statement seemed odd to him, and he didn’t want to let it go.

“Ouma- _kun_ ,” he said, eyes narrowed in thought, “why do you want me to drink from that bottle so badly?”

Ouma blinked at him for a moment, lips parted slightly in surprise. “What? Because I want to see if you got it right.”

“But from the way you were talking,” Saihara pressed, “it seems like you care way more about whether I drink from the bottle than whether I solved your puzzle.”

“Those are just the same thing, aren’t they?” Ouma asked.

“Maybe, but…” Saihara trailed off, scrutinizing Ouma’s slightly startled expression. His thoughts were racing as he struggled to draw the right conclusion, but he couldn’t be sure… “All that stuff you were saying about believing in me… Is it possible that you—”

“Ah, you really got me this time!” Ouma interrupted, slapping a hand to his forehead. “It’s true. I just wanted to kill you this whole time.”

Saihara faltered. “You… said you weren’t trying to poison me before.”

“And I should’ve known I wouldn’t be able to pull one over on a great detective like you,” Ouma lamented. “You really saw right through me, Saihara- _chan_.”

“But I didn’t—”

“The next time I try to kill you,” Ouma declared, pointing dramatically at Saihara as he started backing towards the door, “I’ll make a plan so clever even you can’t see it coming!”

And then he promptly fled the room so quickly that Saihara wondered if he might have teleported.

That left just Saihara alone in a room full of poisonous grape-flavored soft drinks. With a sigh, he set about the tedious process of cleaning it all up—all the while thinking that if Ouma had really wanted to kill him, he probably shouldn’t have left behind so much tangible evidence.

* * *

_Remember, you’re not alone! Believe in your friends!_

Momota had been telling Saihara exactly the same things since this killing game started, and it was no different when they’d spoken through the bathroom’s only window a few hours ago. But for the first time, it hadn’t entirely felt like the right thing to say.

He sighed, squinting one eye closed as he aimed his newly-assembled crossbow at the window. At least his hands were steady, he noted with a pang of grim resolve.

“That guy…” he muttered to himself, thinking of Ouma’s blank face when he’d declared that he was going to kill Momota. “Why does he bother me so much?”

He turned his back to the window and started to pace restlessly instead. Even when he’d been talking to Saihara, he hadn’t been able to banish Ouma from his mind completely. It was pretty typical for Ouma’s words to stick around and simmer at the back of his mind, especially when Ouma was at his most infuriating, but something about this felt different. It was almost like Ouma was obstructing the rest of his thoughts, orbiting around the edges and disrupting everything else.

Ouma’s infuriating smile popped back up in his head, and he shook his head in an attempt to chase it away. He took aim with the crossbow again, this time at the door directly in front of him, as if that could somehow drive Ouma out his thoughts.

He was going over his plan again when the door was thrown open—and suddenly, he was looking at the real Ouma’s face down the sites of crossbow. It was a lot more startled than the version in his memories.

For a moment, they both just blinked at each other, neither moving a muscle.

“Oh, oh,” Ouma said after a beat, sounding only mildly dismayed even as he slowly put his hands up. “This is totally unexpected. How could you, Momota- _chan_?”

Momota narrowed his eyes and didn’t move the crossbow so much as a centimeter. His hands were fortunately still steady, and Ouma’s irreverence just hardened his resolve. “You _told me_ you’re going to kill me.”

“But I didn’t mean it!” Ouma insisted with wide, scared eyes.

“Seriously?!” Momota said through gritted teeth

Ouma’s face broke into a smile. “No, I did. You can take my word for it.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Momota declared, ignoring him. “You’re going to let me out of here, and then we’ll go find everyone else so we can all decide what to do with you.”

“Huh?” Ouma tilted his head in confusion. “Are you sure you should be admitting you won’t kill me if you want to threaten me like this? It’s not very effective.”

Momota blinked at him for a moment, surprised, before he went back to glaring (this time with a bit of pink in his cheeks). “Shut up! I’ll still use it if I have to.”

“It’s okay,” Ouma said placatingly, “I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d tried, anyway.”

“C’mon,” Momota continued, taking a single step forward, “go open the door and let us out of here.”

But Ouma didn’t move a muscle even as Momota continued to advance. In fact, he stood his ground right up until the tip of the crossbow nudging him in the sternum sent him stumbling back a few steps. Momota took his first few steps through the doorway and into the rest of the Exisal hangar.

“Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma said evenly as he shuffled further into the hangar, “you should think about my offer some more. This betrayal really cuts deep, you know… Are you _positive_ you want to do this?”

“I’m not betraying you,” Momota hissed. “There’s no way I’d just roll over and die, especially after you asked me to!”

“Ah, this is my favorite Momota- _chan_!” Ouma cheered. “It’s that totally simple stubbornness that really works as your charm point!”

Momota felt himself flushing even as his grip tightened on the crossbow. “C-Cut it out! I meant what I said!”

“Oh, I know you did,” Ouma assured him, drawing to a sudden stop in the middle of the hangar, his arms still raised above his head. “And that’s what makes it soooo cute. But you know, you really messed up what I said. It’s like my words go in one ear and _right_ out the other!”

Momota found himself stopping, too, with the crossbow still leveled at Ouma’s chest. “Even you can’t seriously try to lie about this,” Momota said confidently. “You said it to _me_.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault your hearing is so bad!” Ouma huffed. “What you said isn’t right… I just asked you to give your life to me.”

He might’ve said more, but Momota’s blood was roaring in his ears. “ _Give_ it to you?”

Ouma had lowered one hand just so that he could press his palm over his heart and fix Momota with an appallingly soft expression. “It’s the exact opposite of what you said before. Your life… it’s really precious to me, you know. I promise I’ll take _extra_ special care of it, okay?”

Despite himself, Momota felt his own heart picking up in response to Ouma’s words. Still, he shook his head, taking another step toward him. “You can’t really expect me to believe you when you say something that messed up.”

“Maybe I want to believe in you, too, Momota- _chan_!” Ouma cried, his eyes abruptly brimming with tears. The emotional whiplash left Momota dizzy—or rather, _dizzier_ than he’d already been before. “Just like everyone else… I—!”

“None of my friends would want me to die!” Momota shot back, impatient.

Ouma sniffled, and after a moment, he glanced away. “Yeah… I’m definitely not your friend. But what I said was still true. If you give me your life, I promise it won’t go to waste!”

“Dying because you want me to is _totally_ a waste!” Momota said firmly. “Dying at all before we get out of here, but especially because of you… that’s giving up!”

“Really?” Ouma asked with a tilt of his head. “That doesn’t sound right to me.”

Momota narrowed his eyes. “Why not?”

“Well, right now… You’re sort of pointless, aren’t you?”

Momota almost dropped the crossbow, he was so surprised. The only thing that stopped him was the utter nonchalance of Ouma’s words, like he was informing Momota that the sun was going to rise tomorrow morning. “Huh?”

“Let’s see…” Ouma lowered his hands so that he could start counting off on his fingers. “You’re not smart enough to save everyone at the class trials—that much is obvious. But you aren’t cool enough to stop everyone from killing each other in the first place, either. You might’ve been pretty good at inspiring everyone to get out of here—after Akamatsu- _chan_ couldn’t do it anymore, of course—but, well… it turns out that we don’t really need someone to do _that_ , after all, do we?”

As Ouma spoke, Momota struggled to do anything but gape wordlessly. With every reason that he added to his list, Momota felt a pit of anger and unyielding resolve expanding in the pit of his stomach, but he couldn’t seem to find the words to put to it. “Th-that isn’t—”

“But even outside of the killing game,” Ouma continued ruthlessly, leaning forward now and refusing to let Momota look away from his sharp gaze, “you don’t really have much going for you, do you? Like I said before, you’re already dying. After the mess you made of the last trial, you won’t even _look_ at Saihara- _chan_ —”

“That’s none of your business!” Momota snapped, the feelings inside of him boiling over at the mention of Saihara’s name.

“It is if it’s going to get the rest of us killed!” Ouma said, raising his voice to be heard over him. Momota found himself taking a step back, like Ouma’s words were a physical force capable of pushing him away from the other side of the room. “You’re just an extra at this point, Momota- _chan_ … A washed-up side character who already got to see his own selfish dream through to the end!”

“My what?” Momota spluttered, gaping.

Stunningly, Ouma glared at him. “Hey, just because you don’t _remember_ going to space doesn’t mean you get to act like it never happened! For the rest of us, the earth being destroyed actually matters… Don’t rub it in!”

“Of course it matters!” Momota yelled, appalled. “ _You’re_ the one who’s always acting like this is all just some game you can’t wait to win.”

“Uh-uh, not this time!” Ouma interrupted, wagging a finger in Momota’s direction. “You won’t get away with distracting me by projecting all of your insecurities off onto me! We’re talking about how you’re a pointless waste of space right now, remember?”

“That’s what you’re _trying_ to do,” Momota corrected him, “but it’s never gonna work!”

“Honestly, Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma said with a pitying frown that made Momota’s anger flare, “you should be _thanking_ me. I’m giving you the chance to _do_ something with that worthless life of yours by dying to stop the mastermind! Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, anyway?”

“Yeah, it’s what I want, but you’re wrong if you think I need to rely on you to do it!” Momota yelled, fixing him with a stormy glare. “The rest of us… we’re gonna get out of here alive, no matter what it takes. I don’t need a reason to die in order to make my life worth living!”

While Momota was talking, Ouma had looked away so that his hair fell over his eyes, obscuring his expression from view apart from the small frown that he still wore. It may have been a trick of the light, or one of Ouma’s own design, but it looked like his lips were trembling. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and flat.

“Momota- _chan_ , please… You can’t be that stupid.”

Momota’s hands were starting to ache from where he held the crossbow in place. “What did you say?”

“You’re always going on and on about how you’re going to believe in people, and that’s enough to make it true,” Ouma said, his voice rising as he spoke. His shoulders were starting to curl up towards his ears and his hands were clenching into fists at his sides, even as he refused to look up at Momota. “But that’s just naïve! You know you’re going to die, right? You understand what that means, _right_?!”

Momota swallowed hard. It seemed like his hands were shaking, after all. “Hey, Ouma. _You’re_ the one that wants me to die, remember?”

“That’s not true!” Ouma yelled, and he sounded so distraught that Momota nearly screamed at him to stop. “ _You’re_ the one who wants to die! You must be, because… You can’t really think you can just make yourself better if you believe hard enough, can you?!”

Momota felt himself go rigid. “You… Of course I don’t think that.”

“Then prove it,” Ouma demanded, still without looking up. “Team up with me.”

And then he was offering his hand out again, like Momota was still coughing his guts out on the bathroom floor and not pointing a crossbow right at his heart, and he felt this overwhelming surge of anger chasing a jumble of thoughts around his head like _How can he still not take this seriously?_ and _Why does he think of me like that?_ none of which could quite make it out of his mouth, and—

And then suddenly there was an arrow sticking out of Ouma’s arm.

It was like Momota had blinked, and the arrow had just teleported through the distance between them. Ouma’s body jerked with the force of it, and he let out a noise that sounded more like surprise than pain. Momota watched blood bloom on the sleeve of Ouma’s shirt, and when he looked up, he found Ouma looking back at him with wide, teary eyes.

“You shot me,” he said flatly, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Momota was still looking at him down the sights of the crossbow. He finally lowered it, continuing to gape at Ouma.

After another beat of heavy silence, Ouma let out a breath.

“Well,” he said more firmly, “it looks like you’ve lost your bargaining chip, Momota- _chan_.”

Momota felt his empty hand curling into a fist. “That’s… That’s seriously all you have to say?”

“Nothing much has changed,” Ouma pointed out. “In fact, if anything, you’ve given me even more justification for killing you now.”

“I _shot_ you,” Momota said, anger and disbelief warring without a clear direction. “I actually… and you’re still going to give me this crap about killing me?”

“I don’t think you’re really one to talk, since you were so trigger-happy,” Ouma said with a chastising frown. His tone was totally irreverent for the sucker punch that his words delivered to Momota’s gut. “So, you can stomach killing me but not working together? So cold…”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you!” Momota insisted.

“You think I can believe that after you _shot_ me?” Ouma asked hotly. “Isn’t that too cruel, even for you?”

It felt like Ouma was leading this conversation, dragging it somewhere that Momota was completely unable to follow. He struggled to connect thoughts in his head in the same pattern that Ouma clearly was, and kept reaching for words and coming up short.

“You know,” Ouma pushed on, relentless, “if you’re feeling guilty, you can make it up to me by letting me kill you.”

Luckily, Momota was saved from having to find the right thing to say to that. A second later, the door to the hangar was rising and Ouma was frowning like something had gone horribly wrong.

“Hey, did you really need to call in another Exisal?” Momota griped. “It was just an arrow…”

But he trailed off when he realized that Ouma wasn’t paying attention. He was reaching for the Exisal remote, and then suddenly he was staggering forward onto his hands and knees with a second arrow sticking straight out of his back.

“You’re going to answer my questions, Ouma,” Harukawa called from the seat of the Exisal, and Momota’s heart gave a wonderful leap.

A few minutes later, when he jumped in front of Harukawa’s second shot, it was a movement of pure instinct. By the time he was asking himself why, there were two thoughts taking shape in his head: he really didn’t want Harukawa to be a murderer, and he couldn’t stand to see the arrow sprouting out of Ouma’s chest this time.

* * *

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Saihara stopped dead outside of the second-floor classroom. The door was ajar, a sliver of natural light spilling out into the hallway where he stood. Momota’s voice from inside had been quieter than usual, but it was so angry that Saihara’s first thought was that it must have been Monokuma that his friend was talking to.

Instinctively, he started forward to open the door, ready to back Momota up when he inevitably ran his mouth—even if Momota didn’t want to see him right now. But before he could take more than a single step, Momota’s conversation partner spoke up.

“Huh?” came Ouma’s voice, startlingly chipper in comparison to Momota’s frigid tone. “I don’t get what you mean.”

Saihara froze again. He still fully intended to open the door and reveal his presence, but… he didn’t do that.

“Like you Hell you don’t!” Momota snapped as Saihara leaned toward the door. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Oh,” Ouma responded just when Saihara lined his eye up with the open door, “could this be about Iruma- _chan_ ’s trial?”

The classroom was lit by a gentle orange glow pouring through the windows on the far wall. At first, the setting sun was blinding him, and he worried that he wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. But even as he thought it, Momota shifted to stand directly in its way, and Saihara got his first glimpse of the two of them silhouetted against the soft light.

Well, almost. Momota was leaning over Ouma, crowding him against the window so that Momota dwarfed him completely from Saihara’s perspective. Momota had his forearm planted on the windows above Ouma’s head so that he could tower directly over him. At this angle, with Momota’s back to him and Ouma entirely hidden behind Momota, he couldn’t see either of their faces. Saihara was too afraid of being noticed to change positions, but with the way they were talking, it practically didn’t matter.

“Of course it’s about the trial!” Momota was saying, jostling Ouma a bit as he spoke. “Quit messing around and tell me what you’re planning!”

“Okay!” Ouma said brightly. Then, just as cheerily, “Momota- _chan_ , I’m planning to kill you next.”

Saihara sucked in a breath.

In front of him, Momota had gone equally still. “Hey—”

“Kidding!” Ouma exclaimed, even more gleeful than before. “Jeez, do you really believe it’s my fault that ugly pig is dead? She’s the one who wanted to kill _me_ , remember. That kind of distrustful attitude is really dangerous—”

“You think I’m gonna believe that?!” Momota spat. “After you killed Gonta?!”

“Ah, how interesting.” Ouma’s voice was intrigued in a way that made Saihara’s stomach churn. “That’s what you think?”

“That’s what everyone thinks!” Momota yelled, clearly approaching his limit. “We all saw what you did!”

Ouma’s response was quiet enough that Saihara almost missed it. “Hmm… but that’s funny, isn’t it?”

Momota straightened, echoing the way Saihara suddenly recoiled from the door. “ _Funny_? You—”

“I was at the trial, too,” Ouma cut in, “and all I saw was you trying to get all of us killed.”

Saihara winced, struck by Ouma’s masterful ability to pick the cruelest possible way of phrasing any given thing.

Momota fared worse, flinching like the words had physically struck him before he was right back to bristling like he had been.

“But we don’t have to talk about that again,” Ouma continued in a smug tone that singlehandedly made Saihara’s pulse spike with nervousness. “I know why you’re _really_ here.”

“Oh, you do, huh?” Momota scoffed.

“Mhm. It’s about Saihara- _chan_ , right?”

Momota suddenly went rigid. Saihara’s knuckles went white on the doorframe as he waited for Momota to answer.

“You know what?” Momota said abruptly. “You’re right. This _is_ about Shuuichi.”

Saihara let out a quiet sigh even as his heart thumped against his ribs. He didn’t realize until right then that he didn’t know what Momota was going to say.

“You’re way too interested in him,” Momota pressed on before Ouma could interrupt. “The last person you tried to manipulate like that was Gonta, and…” Here he seemed to visibly shore up his courage, squaring his shoulders as Saihara’s chest flooded with the familiar warmth that only Momota could inspire. “If you’re planning to get Shuuichi killed, too, then I promise, I’ll never forgive you. And I’ll make sure you never get the chance.”

“Ah, so forceful… Could this be a shovel talk?!” Ouma gasped, prompting Saihara to just about audibly choke on air. “Or maybe… a declaration from a rival?! Well, I’ll have you know, Momota- _chan_ , just because I respect you as an opponent doesn’t mean I’ll give up easily! I’ve raised too many flags on his route already to go down without a fight!”

Saihara pressed a hand to his mouth as his stomach gave an uncomfortable swoop. From the way Momota’s shoulders were shaking, he didn’t seem to be faring much better.

“R-Rival—? No!” he coughed, the back of his neck reddening either from a blush or the fading light. “Don’t make this weird! I just don’t trust you at all!”

“Don’t worry,” Ouma reassured, “I’ll take _excellent_ care of Saihara- _chan_!”

“ _Not_ like _that_!” Momota hissed, and Saihara thanked him fervently in his head.

“Oh,” Ouma sighed, “well, your concern is touching and all, but it’s not what I meant when I said this is about Saihara- _chan_ , anyway.”

“Good!” Momota said too quickly.

Ouma giggled. “Yeah. It’s all about how you wanted to believe in Gonta at the trial.”

Saihara frowned, not enthused about the topic change. Apparently, Momota wasn’t, either, because he said, “I thought you said you weren’t going to bring that up again.”

“Not in so many words. It doesn’t bother you so much what _I_ think about it,” Ouma started, his voice just this side of mocking, “but Saihara- _chan_ taking my side… that was really hard for you to deal with, huh?”

The frustrated noise Momota made was practically a growl. “He didn’t take your side!”

“Oh, but he totally did! Unlike you, he was trying to save his friends, so he had no choice,” Ouma said easily. Then he stood up on his tiptoes to peek over Momota’s shoulder, and Saihara felt his own eyes widening as Ouma caught his gaze. “Right, Saihara- _chan_?”

Saihara straightened as Momota’s head whipped over to the doorway as well, face slack with surprise. Sighing, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and started to make his away across the classroom.

“Shuuichi!” Momota exclaimed, momentarily looking pleased to see him. Then he seemed to remember himself, and Saihara barely held back a wince at how quickly his gaze snapped to the floor. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, you weren’t _spying_ on us, were you?” Ouma gasped in exaggerated disbelief. “That’s not very nice, Saihara- _chan_ …”

“Ah,” Saihara said sheepishly, “you were… sort of hard to ignore.”

“Well, it’s nothing you have to worry about, Shuuichi,” Momota said with a glare thrown toward Ouma. “We were just—”

“Oh, oh, but it totally is!” Ouma cut in. “Momota- _chan_ was just was telling me how jealous he is because I’m your assistant now.”

“Wh—” Momota spluttered, his face flushing in a matter of seconds. “Don’t lie to him! That’s not even…!”

“Did I get it wrong?” Ouma asked with a tilt of his head. “Maybe… you’re actually jealous of Saihara- _chan_?”

Now Saihara joined Momota in gaping at him wordlessly as the implications of that statement raced through his head. It was his turn to blush, it seemed, because he somehow still managed not to expect it when Ouma said things like that. He knew it was a mistake, but sometimes it seemed impossible _not_ to believe him, when he looked at Saihara like he was just waiting patiently for him to get it.

“You know,” Ouma continued, “because me and him are such a good team now?”

Saihara let out the breath he’d unconsciously been holding. Beside him, Momota seemed to bristle instead of deflate, hypothetical hackles rising.

“Ouma- _kun_ ,” Saihara began, “we aren’t even—”

“No way!” Momota exploded, fists clenched at his sides. “Even if you _were_ partners, I wouldn’t want to team up with _you_!”

“I see, I see,” Ouma said, nodding calmly in the face of Momota’s fiery glare. “So, you’re _not_ mad at Saihara- _chan_ right now? That’s such a relief!”

Saihara flinched. He glanced up just in time to see Momota hurriedly looking away from him, wearing an expression like he’d just been slapped, and his heart sank.

“I thought maybe you were jealous of Saihara- _chan_ instead because the two of you were fighting,” Ouma said earnestly, “you know, after the trial. But I’m glad! I’d never forgive myself if _I_ was the reason the two of you stopped being friends.”

“Shut up,” Momota said stiffly.

“Ouma- _kun_ ,” Saihara said as neutrally as possible, “this really doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“No way! He has everything to do with it!” Momota exclaimed. He was glaring at Ouma even while he addressed Saihara, but even getting yelled at was more acknowledgement than Saihara had been expecting, and it made his eyes widen in disbelief. “He’s the one who got Gonta killed in the first place, and it’s his fault the trial went the way it did, too! He’s been manipulating everything this entire time!”

“But isn’t that a really unfair thing to say? I mean…” Here he looked away from Momota and caught Saihara’s gaze instead. “…to Saihara- _chan_ and Gonta, that is. Like they don’t have any choice in what they do, just because you don’t agree with it?”

“Shut up!” Momota shouted this time, reaching out to grab Ouma by the front of his shirt.

“M-Momota- _kun_!” Saihara exclaimed, trying to tug shoulder but getting immediately shrugged off.

“Nothing you say makes any sense,” Momota said.

“Well, I wouldn’t really expect you to get it,” Ouma said, taunting. “It’s Saihara- _chan_ who understands what it takes to find the truth.”

This time, they both turned to Saihara, Momota looking dismayed and Ouma looking expectant.

“Right, Saihara- _chan_?” Ouma prompted.

But Saihara was already shaking his head. “Just because I agreed with you at the trial doesn’t mean we’re on the same team, Ouma- _kun_. What you did to Gonta- _kun_ … it’s not something I can comprehend, even if you were helping us find the truth.”

Momota let out a noise of surprise, while Ouma just tilted his head to the side.

“I see,” Ouma said finally. Then he shrugged and shot a smirk at Momota. “At least _I_ wasn’t trying to get everyone killed. If there’s anything that’s incomprehensible to me, it’s that.”

Momota’s grip tightened on Ouma’s shirt, lifting him up so that Ouma’s feet were just brushing the ground and he had to grab onto Momota’s wrist. “ _I’m_ not the one who _actually_ got someone killed!”

“Momota- _kun_ , let go,” Saihara cut in.

For a few breathless moments, Saihara wasn’t sure what would happen. But Ouma didn’t say anything, just watching Momota with raised eyebrows, and eventually Momota relented.

“Fine,” he muttered as he dropped Ouma and took a few steps away, eyes darting anywhere around the room that wasn’t the two other people there.

Saihara let out a breath. “Ouma- _kun_ —”

“This conversation got kind of boring, don’t you think?” Ouma interrupted him flatly. “Momota- _chan_ is such a hypocrite, I can’t even talk to him.”

“ _I’m_ a hypocrite?” Momota asked, gaping.

Ouma smiled at Saihara, ignoring Momota completely. “Why don’t you explain it to him, Saihara- _chan_? I’m sure you get it, and… I don’t feel like losing any more brain cells today.”

Saihara opened his mouth to respond, but Ouma was already brushing past him, heading straight for the door. He vanished before Saihara could think of something to say, leaving a strained silence in his wake.

Saihara wished from the bottom of his heart that he had the courage to do what Ouma had told him to do, but he couldn’t seem to get any more words past his lips. Momota apparently couldn’t even find the courage to look him in the eye when he was mumbling about having to get back to his room, because he ducked out of the classroom without ever once looking up from the floor.

* * *

A sudden burst of blinding light exploded in front of Momota. Before the stars had cleared from his eyes, there was something being shoved in his mouth, forcing a liquid down his throat even as he spluttered and gagged. By the time he finally shoved Ouma away from him—because it _had_ to be Ouma with his arms wrapped around Momota’s neck from behind—he was completely disoriented, too busy choking to figure out what Ouma had just forced him to swallow.

“Wh-What did you just do?!” he eventually gasped, wiping at his mouth.

“Electrobomb,” Ouma coughed wetly. “Communications scrambled. No signals can get through to us now, so—”

“No,” Momota hissed, “not that. The—the bottle—”

“Oh,” Ouma said, as if that hadn’t occurred to him. He held out the empty bottle with a wavering hand. “The antidote. That was sort of obvious, though, wasn’t it?”

“Antidote?” Momota echoed, voice ringing as if from very far away. “But you… you took…”

“Aw, come on, Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma chastised, although the tremble in his voice made it less effective than usual. “Obviously, I was faking it for Harukawa- _chan_ ’s sake. Did you think I poisoned you again, maybe?”

Momota gaped at him, feeling for all the world like he was speaking a foreign language. “You’re gonna die!”

“Yeah… Just like you!” Ouma said, nodding and seeming to list to the side with the movement. “I guess we’re really more alike than you thought, huh?”

“Why the Hell would you do that?!” Momota wheezed, dizzy with shock and general unsteadiness.

Ouma looked at him like Momota was beyond comprehension. “I… saved you. You’re welcome.”

“B-But what about your stupid plan?!” Momota pressed, feeling desperately that Ouma _needed_ to explain himself. “Now I… You can’t…!”

“It’s kind of embarrassing that you’re so surprised…” Ouma said, still managing to offer a baffling smile even as he swayed in place. “I told you… I wasn’t going to kill you.”

Momota marched over to Ouma, crossing the distance between them in a few shaky steps. He would’ve prodded him in the chest if it didn’t look like a strong breeze would bowl him over. “Why are you doing all this?!”

“I-I still want to team up with you, Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma said fervently. “But it’s… harder for you, this way.”

“ _What_ way?” Momota demanded.

Ouma took a wobbly step toward him, so that they were close enough to reach out and touch. “You have to kill me.”

Momota physically recoiled. It was a beat or two before he found any words. “I have to _what_?”

“Tell me,” Ouma continued, clutching Momota’s sleeve urgently, “why did the killing game start up again?”

“What?” Momota snapped, focusing on his own rattling breaths. “Wh-What do you—”

“It should be over,” Ouma breathed. “So then why… why would Harukawa- _chan_ …?”

“Maybe they just didn’t believe you,” Momota said, automatically steadying Ouma when he lurched against Momota’s chest. When he took his hands away from Ouma’s back, they were covered in blood. “ _You’re_ the one who said it was done, you know.”

“No,” Ouma insisted, “they definitely believed in me… as the mastermind. Something started the killing game again, and… and Harukawa- _chan_ is in danger!”

Momota felt a hot surge of anger at the way Ouma was clearly trying to use Harukawa to manipulate him. But underneath that, for the first time, there was a spark of something wholly separate—the beginnings of a new and still obscure feeling that had him fixing Ouma with a hard, discerning glare.

“You don’t want her to be a murderer, right? Right?” Ouma asked, seemingly oblivious to Momota’s dramatic internal shift in perspective. He spoke in a rush, like he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get the words out fast enough. “So, kill me instead. That’s why I saved you, Momota- _chan_ —so you have no choice but to kill me! Otherwise, Harukawa- _chan_ will die, too, and we won’t even beat the mastermind. You can’t let that happen, can you? When you have the power to stop it?”

Momota’s eyes widened as everything suddenly settled into place, like the world had been tilted off its proper axis until that very second when gravity kicked back in. He grabbed Ouma by the shoulders, stumbling as Ouma swayed in his grip.

“Hey, Ouma,” he said, suddenly breathless. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Ouma said like it was a reflex, his eyes darting away and then back up as he struggled to keep his gaze focused on Momota’s.

“Why do you care?! Huh?!” Momota roared, shaking him a bit as his anger finally spilled out. “Are you listening to me?! Why do you care what happens to Harumaki?!”

Ouma reached up like he was going to brush Momota’s hands off his shoulders, but changed course halfway through and grabbed Momota’s wrists in a weak grip instead. “You’re the one who cares about that, not me. It’s… a weakness that I’m going to exploit. We’re different, remember?”

Momota was shaking his head before all of Ouma’s words had made it out of his mouth. “You didn’t say that before.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Ouma agreed easily, shrugging under Momota’s hands as he finally glanced away. “One of those was probably a lie.”

“Why can’t you just say it?” Momota leaned in until Ouma was forced to catch his eye. “What’s so hard about it?!”

There was suddenly a spark in Ouma’s eyes that hadn’t been there before—or maybe it was just that Momota had never noticed it.

“Why don’t you figure it out for yourself, Momota- _chan_?” he asked sharply.

Momota’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“It doesn’t really matter why I’m doing this, does it?” Ouma goaded, leaning up into Momota’s space so that their faces were inches apart. “Why don’t you just pick your favorite reason instead? I promise I won’t be mad, even if you pick something stupid.”

“Don’t give me that, you bastard!” Momota yelled, his newfound conviction twisting his anger into something even more intense than before. “This whole time, you—you were just being a coward, weren’t you?!”

“So mean, Momota- _chan_ …” Ouma gave him the same cruel smile that he always did. “Not to mention hypocritical!”

Momota scoffed. “Don’t try to make this about me—”

“You’re right, though.”

“Huh?” All of Momota’s thoughts came screeching to a halt in the face of Ouma’s straightforward acquiescence. “…I am?”

Ouma took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m doing this for Harukawa- _chan_ , like you said,” he revealed in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t bear to see her become the blackened when there’s something I can do to stop it. She’s my precious friend, just like everyone else, and I’ve been trying to protect you all the whole time.”

Momota could do nothing but stare at his stricken face. It was one thing to believe it as strongly as he did a moment ago and another thing entirely to actually hear the words straight from the horse’s mouth. He opened his own mouth to say—well, to say _something_ , even if he didn’t know what it was yet, but he never got the chance.

“That’s… what you want me to say, right?”

Momota’s heart stopped dead. He blinked down at Ouma, uncomprehending. “What I…?”

“It’s kind of boring,” Ouma sighed with a breeziness that had Momota’s skin crawling, “but I won’t let you down! You can count on me, Momota- _chan_!”

“You think that’s what I want?” Momota snapped, glaring viciously. “Not even close!”

“Huh?” Ouma’s eyes searched his face, then quickly lowered to the floor. “You… won’t trust me, even now? I guess I understand, but—”

“You’re wrong!” Momota yelled. He moved one hand from Ouma’s shoulder to cup his cheek so that he had to look Momota straight in the eye when he said, “Stop trying to make me hate you!”

“Oh?” Ouma breathed. “I-Is that what I’m doing?”

“Of course it is!” Momota’s voice was shaking with anger. “Now cut it out!”

Ouma reached up to lay his hand over Momota’s. “Why?”

“Because,” Momota said hotly, even as he gently brushed his trembling thumb over Ouma’s cheek, “it’s not gonna work anymore, asshole!”

“Ah.” Ouma sighed, and Momota thought it sounded relieved. “So that’s what you picked, huh?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Momota warned. “I still… can’t forgive you for some of the stuff you did. But I think I understand now. Okay, Ouma? I… I get it.”

Ouma closed his eyes when he smiled this time. “You’ll just… do anything to trust someone, won’t you? …It’s so naïve.”

“Yeah!” Momota agreed wholeheartedly. “And that’s why we’re gonna save Harumaki and take down the real mastermind together!”

“Hm… If I’d known it would be this easy to manipulate you,” Ouma said between increasingly labored breaths, “I would’ve tried this tactic way sooner…”

“This had nothing to do with you!” Momota was quick to correct him. “I had to find the truth for myself. If you keep telling lies like that, no one’s ever going to believe you!”

“I don’t need anyone to trust me but you, Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma said, dropping his hand from where it held onto Momota’s on his cheek in order to clutch at his chest.

“Don’t be so stupid,” Momota muttered, frowning as he felt Ouma shaking in his hands.

“Ah, that hurts… being called stupid by the biggest moron in this place—”

“Hey!” Momota interrupted threateningly.

Ouma squeezed Momota’s wrist with the hand that was still hanging on. “But—ngh, even that’s not as bad as the p-poison that’s currently coursing through my veins, so… let me tell you the plan now, okay?”

Momota blinked at him in surprise. “Huh? You were serious about that?”

Ouma choked on a laugh. “If you want to save Harukawa- _chan_ … and everyone else, it’s the only way.”

“But,” Momota tried, “there has to be—”

“No,” Ouma cut him off. “I-I’m out of time… You understand that more than anyone else could. Don’t you, Momota- _chan_?”

Momota looked at him for a moment, and it was long enough to recognize the kind of determination he could see in the stubborn set of his jaw. He was prepared to twist reality until the two of them were truly partners, and nothing, not even the passage of time, was going to stop him.

Momota nodded grimly, and that was that.

***

Several explanations later, Momota was completely certain of one thing.

“Shuuichi is gonna see right through us!” he declared as he carried Ouma up to the hydraulic press control panel.

He had already dragged Ouma from the bathroom all the way over to the press in order to leave a blood trail, and he was starting to look worse for wear. Since he’d lost so much blood already, Momota was carrying him against his chest, arms looped under his thighs and Ouma’s head lying in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

When Momota spoke, though, Ouma stirred in his arms, leaning back just enough that he could catch Momota’s gaze. Unable to hold himself up without support, he wrapped his arms around Momota’s neck and leaned in until their foreheads were touching.

“Are you sure?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Momota stopped at the top of the stairs, but he didn’t put Ouma down immediately. “Yeah, no doubt! Shuuichi’s never failed to find the truth so far, even when _you_ were trying to stop him. He’s braver than all of us combined, just wait!”

Ouma searched his eyes for the space of a few heartbeats, desperately, before his own eyes fluttered closed.

“You’ll have to do my waiting for me, Momota- _chan_ ,” he muttered. Then, in a stronger voice, he added, “But I don’t have that much faith in Saihara- _chan_ … He’s… sort of disappointing, isn’t he?”

Momota glared at him, even though Ouma couldn’t see it. “Huh? How could you even think that after everything he’s done to get in your way?”

“Well,” Ouma murmured, smiling, “what kind of detective… relies on his assistant to do all the work?”

“This again,” Momota grumbled. “You were never his assistant, no matter what you think is true!”

“Hm,” Ouma hummed. “Agree to disagree… I guess. Saihara- _chan_ really is too—”

Momota cut him off with a loud sigh that ruffled the hair on Ouma’s cheeks. “Hey, just because I get what you were trying to do this whole time doesn’t mean I’ll let you say whatever you want. Shuuichi is fighting to get us all out of here in his own way, too!”

It was Ouma’s turn to sigh. “How boring.”

“Besides,” Momota pressed on like Ouma hadn’t spoken, “don’t you need him to figure all of this out in order for the plan to work?”

Ouma opened his eyes, leaning back an inch or two just so that he could fix Momota with a look of shock. “Huh! …I guess you’re right for once, Momota- _chan_!”

“Shut up,” Momota griped, knocking his forehead back into Ouma’s just so he could avoid that impossibly smug expression. “It’s not like you would make a plan to beat the mastermind that you already knew was gonna fail. I know you’re relying on Shuuichi, too.”

Ouma reached up to press a trembling hand to Momota’s cheek. “Maybe that’s just my way of getting all of you killed.”

“No way,” Momota said fiercely, without a moment’s hesitation. “I’ve been watching you put trust in our friends this entire time, even if I still hate some of what you did.”

“You sound mad,” Ouma noted evenly.

“Of course I’m mad!” Momota confessed, voice heated. “You tried to make all of us share our motive videos, even though you knew how bad it would be… You said all of that crap about Iruma, but she was the one you trusted when you needed weapons to beat Monokuma… Hell, you even showed Gonta that video because you knew he was the best, most selfless person here! Every step of the way, all of your plans would have been total failures if you didn’t assume the best in everyone else… and you still expect me to believe that you half-assed this plan that’ll fail the second our friends betray all of that, just because you say you did?!”

Ouma was watching him with a completely blank expression, cheeks flushed in his deathly pale face. It wasn’t the reaction Momota had been searching for, but that was okay. He was starting to think that maybe he should stop having any expectations at all, when it came to Ouma.

“Even if you’re too scared to admit it to yourself…” Momota said, voice hushed in the empty hangar already filled with Ouma’s blood, “…don’t underestimate me, at least! If you can’t believe in yourself, I’ll do it for you!”

Ouma turned his head away with a painful-sounding choked-up noise, and Momota thought for one earth-shaking moment that he might have been crying. But then he let out a hacking cough, his entire body shaking in Momota’s arms until Momota was struggling to hold him up.

“O-Ouma?” he asked, alarmed. “Hey, Ouma… Can you hear me? Ouma!”

“Momota- _chan_ ,” Ouma gasped. He laid a hand flat on Momota’s chest and weakly tried to push him away. “I-I’m really dying, you know? I, ah—I think you need to k-kill me _now_ , before Harukawa- _chan_ ’s poison…!”

“Now?!” Momota repeated frantically. “But—”

He cut off with a yell as Ouma struggled his way out of Momota’s hold and promptly collapsed onto the ground in front of the hydraulic press control panel. Momota rushed to help him up, but touching the gaping wound on his back just caused Ouma to cry out in pain, and Momota immediately retracted his hands as though they’d been burned. In the end, Ouma dragged himself up by himself and only turned back to face Momota when he was already standing on his own two feet.

“N-No time,” he panted. He was leaning against the console with only one arm—the one that wasn’t dripping blood from the arrow wound that Momota gave him. “When the video starts… no more talking.”

“Ouma…” Momota tried, reaching out a hand to him.

But Ouma ignored him, instead turning his back on him in order to set up the camera. His hand froze inches away from the bloody mess that was his back, and it took every ounce of willpower inside him to pull it back and turn around. He forced himself to take one step and then another, steadily increasing the distance between them even when every instinct he possessed was tugging him back where he started. Ouma didn’t say another word, and Momota couldn’t think of any of his own.

When he reached the press, he took off his coat and spread it out like Ouma had told him. He took one last glance at Ouma, whose head was ducked down behind the camera, before he laid down on the starry fabric and closed his eyes.

“Okay!” he called out into the darkness. “I’m ready when you are, Ouma!”

He heard a quiet snort, muffled as though it came from much farther away than he knew it did.

“Honestly, Momota- _chan_ …” came Ouma’s voice, weak but unmistakably amused. “You’d really just… let me kill you…”

“No way,” Momota said firmly, “I already told you. I’ll never just roll over and die.”

His answer was more silence. Eventually, the press roared to life above him, and he fought to keep his breath steady even as he felt it above him, pushing down on him even though there were still entire feet of empty air separating them. He focused on Ouma’s distant presence on the other side of the press, telling it not to crush him, and somehow he managed to find the courage to hold still.

When the press rumbled to a stop still suspended above him, he broke into a grin. He gave it a beat or two before he opened his eyes and called out, “You see, Ouma? It’s just like I said!”

“I told you not to talk…” When Momota rolled out from under the lowered press, he found Ouma still leaning over the control panel, this time with his chin resting in his hand so that he could fix Momota with an answering smile. “Come on, hurry up.”

Momota felt the strongest urge to drag his feet so much that he never made it back up the steps, but at the same time he just couldn’t stop himself from returning to Ouma’s side.

When Momota got there, Ouma was struggling to take his shirt off while fatally wounded. “You remember the plan?”

“Yeah,” Momota confirmed as he batted Ouma’s hands away and started helping him with the buttons. “It’s up to me now, right?”

Ouma didn’t answer, instead looking down at Momota’s fingers while they worked. Momota decided that he would talk for the both of them, then.

“It’s gonna work,” he promised abruptly. “I’m positive. Because there’s no one else here I trust more to know what our friends are capable of. I’ll be there to push them forward. And even if they fail… even then, you already saved me and Harumaki.”

By the time he finished talking, he’d managed to peel the shirt from Ouma’s bloody back with only minimal irritation to his injuries. Ouma dropped it to the floor, looked up at Momota, and nodded.

“Okay,” he said with conviction, reaching both arms out towards Momota. “I’m ready to be you.”

Momota rolled his eyes but reached out to pick Ouma like he had before, holding him against his chest. He waited until Ouma was settled before he started down the stairs. “That’s not really what we’re doing.”

“C-Can’t you at least pretend to get it…?” Ouma muttered into his shoulder as they descended. “Just while I’m still alive… It’s not even… that long.”

“We’re both gonna die before you get me to say we’re the same,” Momota said cheerily.

It startled a wheezing laugh out of Ouma, and Momota tried to hold onto the warm feeling of Ouma’s laugh reverberating against his chest. He imagined that Ouma, with his head pressed flush against his neck, could hear his heartbeat, and he tried his best to keep it steady for him.

They reached the hydraulic press before Momota thought of something else to say. Momota had never felt the passage of time like the unrelenting force of gravity more than in that moment. He paused and rested his cheek on the top of Ouma’s head.

Gently, Momota lowered Ouma onto his coat, nestling him among the stars. He hesitated to let go of Ouma’s hand and instead cradled it up against his own chest, a breath away from his heart.

Ouma blinked up at him, a silent question. The galaxies behind him were starting to dull as blood seeped into the fabric.

Momota took a deep breath. “Alright!” he said, beaming down at Ouma. He held onto his smile despite the sudden ache in his throat and fit his fingers through the gaps in Ouma’s. “You can relax now, Ouma. Just leave the rest of it to me!”

Ouma gave a shaky laugh, and Momota squeezed his hand. “Of course,” he breathed. “You were my first… and only choice… Momota- _chan_.”

“It’s not just the two of us,” Momota reassured him. “When we take down the mastermind, it’s gonna be a whole team effort. Everyone will finally get along, because of you.”

Ouma smiled now, too, and used what was probably the last of his strength to tug his hand free. He let it fall into the same spot where Momota’s had lain minutes before, so precise that Momota didn’t even have to reach over to tug it into place.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, and Momota’s heart just about burst in his chest. “I really wish… I could’ve k-killed you instead.”

“I don’t,” Momota said fiercely. “Don’t bother with regrets, Ouma. When I start playing the part of Ouma Kokichi… I’m gonna shoulder all of that stuff for you! And I’ll see it through to the end, okay?!”

Ouma looked at him for an eternity, like he was trying his hardest to drink in the sight of him one last time. “Okay,” he whispered. “Then… Please take care of me, Momota- _chan_.”

Momota nodded firmly. “You bet.”

Then, with a final brush of his hand’s against Ouma’s, he turned and started for the stairs one last time.

* * *

Ouma watched the lights swim on the far away ceiling, shining around the edges of the looming hydraulic press. He watched them disappear bit by bit as the press bore down on him, and he could feel his whole body shaking with every rattling breath he took. Even as he trembled, he felt adrift, like he was floating through the galaxy that Momota was always wearing on his back, instead of lying tethered to his deathbed.

He imagined that Momota was still lying there with him instead of standing on the other side of the press giving it the order to crush him. He imagined that the coat surrounding him was actually filled with Momota’s body, not his, and that the heartbeat hammering in his chest came from Momota pressing up against his back. He imagined that Momota’s hand was still lying in that same spot, under his.

The more he thought about it, the closer it came to being real.

It was surprisingly easy to lie still and silent for those last few seconds. It might not have been possible before—but then Momota had declared his intention to carry all the burdens of being Ouma Kokichi, and since then, Ouma had never felt so light.

He wondered if Momota was afraid instead, now that Ouma finally felt brave.

_At least for a little while_ , he thought as his eyes fluttered closed, _Momota, you’ll remember_.

Behind his eyelids, there were still stars bursting.


End file.
